Music for February 8, 2015 + The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• A Gaelic Blessing – John Rutter (b. 1945)
• May the Peace of God – Israeli, arr. Geoff Weaver (b. 1943)

Instrumental Music

• Flourish and Chorale – Michael McCabe (b. 1941)
• The Peace May Be Exchanged (from Rubrics) – Dan Locklair (b. 1949)
• Toccata in Seven – John Rutter

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 423 Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO)
• Hymn 529 In Christ there is no East or West (MCKEE)
• Hymn R191 O Christ, the healer (ERHALT UNS, HERR)

The 1940s is, by far, my favorite decade. I love 40s music. I love 40s movies. I love listening to 40s old-time radio programs. And, judging from today's music list, I love playing music by composers born in the the 40s. All of the choral and organ music this week is by composers born during that great decade. John Rutter, arguably one of the most performed choral composers of the past forty years, has written hundreds of small choral works and several larger works, several of  which have become part of the core concert repertoire the world over. We are singing his A Gaelic Blessing, which is a staple of choirs around the world. It was written as a parting gift for Mel Olsen, the beloved choir director of First United Methodist, Omaha, in 1978. A Gaelic Blessing has become a popular choice at christenings, weddings and funerals. (It was used at the Commendation at the Funeral Mass for Tip O'Neill.) Sometimes known as 'Deep Peace', this piece became a hit in 2003 when a recording of it by Aled Jones was released. The music says words are from an old Gaelic Rune, (an Old Norse word rune meaning 'letter', 'text' or 'inscription'), but there were no Gaelic runes - only Germanic ones - so it is safe to say it's just an old Gaelic blessing.

Dan Locklair, who appears to be as fond of pipe smoking
as he is of pipe organs.

Among the organ pieces today, a favorite is the communion voluntary by the North Carolina native Dan Locklair. This piece is the fourth movement of his liturgical suite for organ called Rubrics. Commissioned in 1988 for the Organ Artists Series of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, its extra-musical impetus and subsequent titles for each movement of Rubrics came the instructions (rubrics) to the services for The Book of Common Prayer.

Peter Hardwick, writing in The Diapason, has called Rubrics “one of the most frequently played organ works by an American composer.” Movements from Rubrics were not only heard at the Washington National Cathedral funeral service of President Ronald Reagan in 2004, but also as a part of the January 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. service in the same venue during the Presidential Inauguration of President Barack Obama. The fourth movement,  “The Peace may be exchanged,” is a lyrical piece, featuring a solo diapason color, accompanied by strings and double pedal throughout.

The opening voluntary, Flourish and Chorale, begins with, yes, a flourish - a trumpet fanfare - with an angular melody in the right hand accompanied by some pretty dissonant chords in the left hand. The flourish announces, so to speak, the arrival of the chorale, a much more lyrical, dignifed procession before it returns with more crashing chords at full organ. It is written by Michael McCabe, a man with two very distinct and varied professions. In addition to being an organist, composer, and teacher, he is also chief nurse anesthetist at the Omaha Surgical Center in Nebraska.

• Immortal, invisible, God only wise (ST. DENIO) A verse from 1st Timothy, ("Now unto the King Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.") is the basis for this hymn of pure praise. The rollicking anapestic rhythm of the Welsh melody rushes the singer along to the climactic poetic thought of God being invisible only because he is hidden by the splendor of light.
• In Christ there is no East or West (MCKEE) The text was written by John Oxenham (the pen name for William Arthur Dunkerly) for a pageant in 1913, and is an example of a prophetic hymn - one that states the ideal to be achieved rather than the present situation. In our hymnal it is paired with a tune that has strong African-American roots, but according to a letter from Charles V. Stanford to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (who arranged the tune for piano in his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, 1905), MCKEE was originally an Irish tune taken to the United States and adapted by African American slaves. It became associated with the spiritual "I Know the Angels Done Changed My Name." 
• O Christ, the healer (ERHALT UNS, HERR) Here is a contemporary hymn that speaks to both individual and societal disease. F. Pratt Green's hymn does this beautifully, naming the link between personal and corporate life as "conflicts that destroy our health" and that find relief only when the healing wholeness of life in Christ "shall reach the whole of humankind." 

The youth of the St. Gregory choir will sing their rehearsal benediction, May the Peace of God, at the beginning of communion. The Israeli folk melody gives this simple song of blessing a haunting quality. It is arranged by Geoff Weaver, another British musician, whose lifelong passion has been teaching and spreading the music of God's people from all over the world. Through his work for the Church Mission Society, he has had teaching assignments in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Nigeria, and published two volumes of World Praise.